Some of our campers using reusing water bottles as planters for our bottle tree.

We have been looking forward to this week of camp for a while now. We knew this was really our first opportunity to get out into the physical environment of our downtown community. We wanted our first camp to get our kids outside the physical space of AIH into the urban environment around us. The idea of an Urban Intervention - bringing art and creativity into the physical cement and brick of our city - would hopefully inspire our campers to see how art can really transform physical spaces. What we didn't expect was the level of inspiration we would get from working with them throughout the process.

Toronto Artists Sean Martindale and Eric Cheung and their work using existing, illegally hung posters in Toronto as urban planters was really the starting point for our ideas and foundational to the direction of the camp. We really resonated with the idea of using nature and our environment as the backdrop to artistry, incorporating sustainable art practice in connection with installations that become a part of our physical communities.

In many ways these projects become symbols of the opportunities we all have to impact the community around us.

Despite all of the fun we have had this week, it has been incredible watching these budding artists learn to take photos using a variety of different angles and shots, wheat paste photos to terra skin paper, arrange actual plants into their compositions, and see the impact of people walking by their work in amazement at the beauty of the collaboration of art and the environment... and we are only half-way done!

Take a look at some of the work so far and come down and see us if you have the chance. We look forward to rounding out the week with some more fun projects.

We had a great time this week hanging out with the Portage View community. It reminded us again how incredibly creative kids are. It also reaffirmed how we view Arts Education: you don't need to model everything.

We wanted our creations with Portage View to be simple as well as transferable. Art-making doesn't require expensive materials, and techniques often standard-issue with kids need to be uplifted. It was a reminder that the joy of creating is really foundational for great ideas.

We loved the idea of reconnecting our innate love of cardboard and rocks, to sculpture and painting so that we don't forget the value of hanging on to that ginormous fridge box or spending an evening looking for rocks on the beach. Like the master-builders in the LEGO movie as they see pieces for their creations everywhere they look, we want kids to see art in the everyday.

So thanks Portage View for inviting us to your shin-dig. We had a great time connecting with you all!

I’m the type of guy that always has music running through his head. It's almost like there is a soundtrack for life that serves as a backdrop to all the visual stuff going on.

Often the soundtracks are the loudest when I’m travelling. People seem to be moving in rhythm as the backdrops roll by at a slower pace.

Sometimes there are moments when its as if things play in slow motion; the soundtrack is getting louder as you zone in to what is coming up on the horizon. As each frame ticks by, the music continues to grow.

My drive down to Art in House was like that today.

I don’t know if it was because I saw the Flying Monkey’s Brewery beginning to appear as I rounded Simcoe St. and pictured myself picking up some Hoptical Illusion before I headed home, or if it was because we have felt so valued by the other artists, artisans, and owners in the downtown that it is beginning to feel like home. Whatever the reason, I like it.

The Beyond the Front Door Gallery is our way of celebrating some of the people that make our downtown an amazing place. It's a photo exhibit highlighting the personalities that represent the places that inspire us and are part of our community.

When you come by to check out the photos, we hope that they show you how important it was for us to connect with our downtown community. The photos are very much representational, as the process of taking them was impactful.

Often we forget that children have this innate sense of creativity at their core. They have incredible ways of interpreting, constructing, and letting go of constraints that put thinking into boxes with limits of what is acceptable.

Picasso got it. The grown-up world doesn’t. It (we) systematically limit creativity because it gets in the way of objectives, purpose, or doesn't produce the results we want. We create instruction manuals for life and live in-between the pages.

As we get back into EMERGE this Saturday, this is why we love working with kids. Their freedom is inspirational, nostalgically reminding us of what it was like to be a kid.

In the few short weeks we have been running EMERGE, I am reminded that our role is really to be activators. Activators set up the scenarios, and pick the tools, but the rest is up to the creators. We become “observers of awesomeness” instead of “dictators of outcomes”.

This past session we introduced the idea of projection art. Using acetate, markers, an old overhead, and a camera, these creative kiddos made some great pieces. Check it out below.

Oh ya, we also brought them outside for a little bit of inspiration too.

This past Saturday marked the beginning of our next initiative at Art In House - EDUCATION.

In February we began this journey we call Art In House, showcasing Georgian College students in their Exquisite Mundane Humdrums opening. We followed this up with our first community art project (The House Project), and currently are showcasing the work of Alana Sproule, We Only Have What We Remember, in our Gallery.

Before all of that, even before we had decided on a name, one of our main goals for our space was to provide opportunity for kids to explore, be creative, and celebrate expression through art. We are so excited to have finally started down that road.

EMERGE started this past Saturday with two classes. A 5-9 age group in the morning, followed by a 10-14 group in the afternoon. As part of the exploratory process, we felt it was incredibly valuable for kids to have a place to store all of their doodles, splatters, and pastings. Instead of handing each of them a sketchbook, we used cardboard, duct tape, and sharpies to create their individualized space for exploration. Check out some of them below.

Cardboard and duct tape are hardly conventional materials for making art; we want kids to see that Art can EMERGE from unlikely places. We hope these cardboard creations will capture this emergence as we continue our 4 week session.

Check back with us over the next few weeks to watch our creations develop. If your kids are currently not enrolled in EMERGE, you can register for our May - June session HERE.

The House Project was a great opportunity to connect with people in our community while making some great prints. We had a glimpse of how creative the people in Barrie are with our first community art project.